Mikkel said:
You may very well be right about the efficiency of railroads over highways. But I think it's easy to criticize in retrospect. When Eisenhower was building these roads, it wasn't just for business/transportation purposes, but was also planning for what seemed to be an eventual military conflict with the Russians. Not only did he implement the 1 in 5 miles straight rule for the interstates, he chose roads to begin with because he recognized that, in time of war, especially more modern wars which include tactical military airstrikes, it is very easy to disrupt a railroad line, and not so easy to fix it. On the other hand, finding alternative roads to an interstate would slow down the supply line, but not cut it off completely.
I can see your point, and it is well made. Just recognize that it is very easy to criticize decisions made 50 years ago. It may not have been the best decision in the long run, but it seemed like the best decision at the time. I wouldn't fault Eisenhower for that.
yeah but that's the crux of the problem, most centrally planned economic actions can easily be criticized later. The Government and Military have a particular midset they use consistantly in all their economic calculations, and that is preservation of the state and their power. At the same time, they do not have much or any concern over the single most important economic calculator, price.
Government funds what it funds, by taking from others, and if they don't have the funds, they just figure out how to take more.
Preservation of power in the absence of price almost invariably produces results in which true costs and benefit are never really understood. It would have been perfectly easy to build interstate highways, that served an excellent national security means, and promote other forms of transport, or at least didn't "prevent" them.
Federal funding for highways is not even limited to interstates either. They fund billions and billions of dollars to highways systems that go a few miles, could NEVER land ANY form of plane, and maybe a helicopter, a small one. They funded highways that go right AROUND cities instead of between cities. They fund highways that go from a street in one part of the city, to a street in another part or outside, but not to another highway.
It's these irrational and stupid actions (that were encouraged so people could feed from the trough), that have actually created the depenancy on on auto and foreign oil. Poor central planning on the part of localities and states and the fed, in light of the fed's market intervention. It's also, particularly, the WAY these highways were designed, that has also lead to urban sprawn and longer commuting times.
And, I generally, though not totally, liked Ike, but absolutely I do fault him for being ignorant of near 4000 years of history.
Hammurabi's Code was not JUST the first example of written law, it was the first example of central planning and command economies. It's effects were dissaterous. Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Chinese, Indian, Russian, British, Fench, and German, etc, etc, etc, all have instituted central edicts of economic control, and they have all, in the long run, be if not wholly problematic or disasterous for the people and government, have been the impetus for violent revolution. ALl these before Eisenhower was born, all these before Eisenhower was General, all these before Eisenhow was president. Yes, his ignorance is his fault. It was not like some well kept secret, hidden away from him, it was Human History.
